When the Chalk River nuclear reactor is permanently shuttered, Canada will be in a much better position to provide medical isotopes than it was back in 2009.
Six years ago, an unplanned shutdown at the NRU created a global shortage of the isotopes at hospitals and research facilities. But it also became the impetus to search for new ways to make technetium-99, the isotope used in a wide range of diagnostic tests. NRU had until that point been the world’s prime source of it.
Since then, new sources of medical isotopes have sprung up in Canada — smaller and simpler than the hulking NRU reactor.
Canada will have to import some isotopes in the short term after NRU closes, said Paul Schaffer, head of nuclear medicine at TRIUMF, Canada’s national particle physics lab.
“The timeline is tight,” he said, but he added that Canada is reaching the point where hospitals can make their own supply.
Tom Spears – Ottawa Citizen – March 16, 2015.
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